When writing press releases or pitching company news to journalists’ inboxes, it’s important that you write clearly.
You risk the journalist deleting your email if you don’t communicate your message clearly.
1. Can you make it shorter?
It’s easier to read and understand texts when you don’t have to deal with redundant information. Write concisely and avoid filler words.
Fillers include expressions such as ‘namely’, ‘just’, ‘in a sense’, ‘in any case’ and ‘in other words’. Without filler words, your message stands out more clearly.
Your pitch or press release has a better chance of being read if the journalist can quickly grasp the content.
Convenient:
Read through your text and consider: Can I make it shorter?
Are there a lot of filler words?
See an example of a rewrite from an email pitch:
Long: ‘This Danish company has received another investment after receiving investment from investors many times before’.
Short: ‘Danish company receives investment’.
2. Sort in run-on sentences
Your texts will be easier to read if you cut down on run-on sentences – parts of sentences similar to this sentence integrated into other sentences.
A lot of run-on sentences can make your text difficult to understand. In addition, interjections can be a symptom of a high – and often unnecessary – level of detail.
Convenient:
Read through your text and consider: Is there any unnecessary elaboration?
If the content of an inserted sentence is important, you can move the information to a separate sentence:
‘The employees , who have all been with the company since start-up, are now moving work addresses for the first time’
‘All employees have been on board since the start. They are now moving their work address for the first time’
3. Rewrite keywords
When writing to people outside your industry, rewrite industry-specific terms in plain English.
If you’re sending your press release to a journalist who knows a lot about your field, a few industry words in the email pitch is fine.
Your press release can reach a wider audience if you translate words like ‘UX’ to ‘user experience’. If the journalist wants to rewrite the press release into a news story, you’ve made their job easier by translating.
Convenient:
Read through your text and look for technical terms. Translate technical details, legal clauses, American startup slang, etc. into plain Danish. Use the grandma trick if necessary.
4. Write actively
Your language can become unfocused and heavy if you write a lot of passive sentences – sentences that hide who is performing an action.
Passive sentences:
A) ‘Referring to the office on the 2nd floor’
B) ‘It will be done on Monday’
Active sentences:
C) ‘We refer to the office on the 2nd floor’
D) ‘I will do it on Monday’
You can spot passive sentences by looking for sentences:
– where the verb ends in ‘-ing’ (A)
– with ‘there’ as the root (the one doing the action – A)
– where an action ‘gets done’ instead of a person (e.g. ‘I’) doing it (B)
Important information – such as ‘who should do what’ – can get lost in passives. Your reader can more easily decode what you want him to do if you actually write it.
Practical:
Avoid passive sentences such as:
‘The event needs to be scheduled soon, so written follow-up will follow’.
The journalist is more likely to respond to your email if you write actively and accurately:
‘We’re planning an event soon – and I’ll send you an email when the details are finalized’.
5. Write unambiguously
To write clearly, you need to eliminate opportunities for interpretation. If your text is ambiguous, you risk losing your message.
Be specific and think about whether your text can be interpreted in multiple ways. For example, consider whether it is unambiguous to write:
‘He has invested in smaller companies, but also larger ones that are already self-sustaining. They quickly pay for themselves again’
In the example, ‘they’ can cover either ‘larger companies’ or both smaller and larger companies. If you write ambiguously, you risk the journalist misunderstanding your story and rejecting it.
Convenient:
It can be difficult to find ambiguous wording in your own text. Let others read your text and have them retell the message. If they get your point, you’ve probably written clearly.
6. Use the context
Context is an important player in communication – it guides us in how to understand a text. So think about context when you write.
If you’re writing an email to a journalist, personal phrases like ‘you’ and ‘I’ fit the context. If you’re writing a press release, personal phrases should not be included.
If you don’t use contextual codes in your text, you create noise around your message.
If you write ‘I predict our UX upgrade will be well received’ in the headline of your press release, the journalist may write your story off as frivolous.
If you follow the press release genre and write ‘X company focuses on user experience’, the journalist is more likely to read on.
Convenient:
Read your text and consider: Does the text fit the context? If you’re writing your first press release, find and read similar stories in relevant media and copy the tone.
Stay tuned to our blog – we have a post on journalistic tips in the works.
Put the advice into action
Use these 6 tips to make sure you’re clear and concise the next time you write to journalists.
If you don’t want direct contact with the media, Mark & Jakob can act as an intermediary between your company and journalists – and you can also let us formulate your company texts. Write to Mark & Jakob for sparring.
More PR & communication advice
SoMe Guide: Getting Extra Value Out of Press Releases
Media stakeholders: How do you activate them?
Do you know your startup lingo? 10 words you should know
A linguistic no-hater speaks out
